Zenjo
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Everything posted by Zenjo
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Decent match. I like that they didn't try to go for too much. The highlight was the inevitable Kikuchi asskicking. He probably thought it wouldn't be too bad beforehand with no Fuchi or Jumbo to torture him. Instead Kawada and Taue are more than happy to take over and tossed him around like a rag doll. It's tough at the bottom of the food chain. However this match also featured the jobberish Ogawa and Kikuchi seized his opportunity. It was nice to see him pick up a rare victory.
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The start of a 9 match rivalry that would electrify the promotion for the next 2 1/2 years. The dates were 6/1/93, 12/3/93, 5/21/94, 11/25/94, 1/24/95, 6/9/95, 10/15/95, 11/21/95 & 12/9/95 for arguably the GOAT feud. My old rankings had this as the 5th best match of the series and I'm looking forward to revisiting the rest of the matches chronologically. The tag champs dominated the first half before a more even 2nd half. Having been watching early 90's stuff this seemed like a really long and winding stretch. Four great workers in their prime and the teams had immediate chemistry. There were some high end moments as they gave a glimpse of what was to come. There were however odd errors and it wasn't as polished as later installments. A low end classic. Misawa vs Kawada was now coming into primary focus for AJ.
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Didn't Gordy lose to Hansen in June 93? OK so was Gordy meant to have the September 93 title shot instead of Williams? I'm guessing that's the tour where he overdosed on the way over and fell into a coma. It wasn't that Gordy was being booked weak in 1993, but not as strongly as he had been in previous years. He was struggling to maintain his in ring performance also. This match was ultimately a last hurrah for him.
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Off the top of my head I can't remember Hansen ever tapping out. Overall there were so few submissions in big AJ matches that I'm not believing in them as potential finishers down the stretch. The 1st ever Triple Crown match to end in a submission was Hashimoto vs Arashi in 2003! So it doesn't work for me watching it 20 years later knowing what a minor role submissions played in the style. Of course it was different for the fans at the time. A few years later they too weren't buying them as finishers, so they probably should have had a few more in title matches to spice things up. Having pinfalls all the time became unbalanced.
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A match that showcases AJ long term booking at it's best. Wins and career progression really used to mean something. You had the rising young star facing off against the declining ex-champion, and here they met along the road. Gordy had the majority of the offence and looked good in there with KK selling for him. A deliberate pace but always kept moving. The underdog took a lot of punishment and came back into it as conditioning started to tell. He got the landmark win and it was a feelgood moment. Consistant G-VG quality.
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Really disappointing, as this matchup usually was for whatever reason. The champion started strongly and had the best of the early going. Hansen came back by working on the arm extensively. It wasn't exciting and didn't go anywhere, dragging at times. Then the stretch was also a let down. Misawa kept on applying the facelock rather than going for high impact moves that might actually work. Then after 27m the finisher was a solitary elbow that came out of nowhere.
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I wouldn't go as far as calling it an all time classic, but this is an excellent match and a joy to watch. At 34m a long 'un and time flew by. Scientific all the way between Tecnicos with no raised tempers. That didn't mean it wasn't intense and aggressive however. Reminded me of Bret vs Davey Boy. Azteca delivered a strong performance, but nearly everyone would be hopelessly outshone by Dandy at the top of his game. This yearbook I've come to appreciate why he's so highly rated. He could do it all. Brawl, wrestle, matwork, aerial, rudo, tecnico. Here it was a mat based clinic with excellent selling. Quite MUGAish at times. The only thing that held it back for me was that they had to stay within the confines of the rules, so it didn't quite have the emotion to go with the tecnical quality.
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Pretty much everthing I'd hoped it would be. Dandy didn't even make it to the ring with forehead intact. Satan controlled the early going but it never got too one sided. It was a mixture of brawling and high impact moves, little of the fancy stuff here. Gritty and intense. I particularly enjoyed in the segunda caida when they briefly teased the 2-0. There was also Dandy refusing to quit in several submissions that would've ended a regular match. Then at the dawn of the tercera they were attacking like wild animals, tearing and biting as Nico also tasted the tinto. There were near falls aplenty and great exhaustion selling. I understand that with the finish they were saying that 'There is no honour in war'. But as a great wrestling match it wasn't how I wanted it to end, and wasn't as satisfying as the rest of the contest. Overall a fantastic battle with both men equally magnificent.
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It was many years ago during my initial viewing when I first began to understand Jumbo's greatness. He was the wounded old lion trying to fight off the pretender to his throne. Misawa was the young punk with more strength, better conditioning and the desire to prove that last time was no fluke. For the first 15m they set the scene. It was like a volcano waiting to explode. When Misawa came close to a pin Tsuruta lost his professional calm and briefly displayed all of the humiliation and anger that had been building up inside of him. That set in motion an extraordinary stretch. Such emotion as Jumbo was so desparate for the win and the redemption it would bring. It made me emotional too as I wanted him to do it so badly. The selling of exhaustion was magnificent. Tsuruta looked like he was on his last legs and I genuinely believe he was. A couple of spots were messed up because of the tiredness but that actually fitted in with the story being told. Misawa had nothing taken away in defeat as he himself had ascended to greatness over the two matches. For Jumbo this was arguably the crowning glory of his legendary career. 1990 MOTY.
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1st half was straight up good quality wrestling. Then Hase did a meaty blade job. Not as bad as Muta in '92 but still tasty. It then turned into a fight and a beating. Good stuff, although they could have continued wrestling and ended up with the same quality of match. Just would've been less memorable.
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Well that was lengthy. Very, very long. Absolutely no question of any shortage in the duration department here. Don't get me wrong it was a decent enough match but there's no reason for it to go 45m instead of 30m. The work was solid throughout and there weren't any bad segments. It just never at any stage looked like anything but a draw, so lacked excitement. The main theme was Taue's growth as he was mainly on the receiving end. He bled for nearly the whole time as it was an existing head wound. Kawada was also stepping up and looked at home in the main event scene. Solid, and plenty of it.
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Neither were good workers although Caras was super over as a rudo. The crowd were wild in more ways than one. It did have drama and intrigue because of the big match format and importance of the masks. Kind of like an 80's Hulk Hogan match which drew big and entertained the crowd. Not what I look for as the quality of the wrestling was quite low.
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Watchable enough for about 10m and then ill advisedly drags on for another 20m. Finish was horribly botched by both the wrestlers in the lead up and then the timekeeper. According to my timer it was at 29:40, on the screen it was 29:59 and according to the bell it was a little past 30:00. Benoit vs Scorpio was a legit 19:59 and really well executed.
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At this rate none of us will be alive when you've finished all the 90's yearbooks. But it's not going anywhere, and what's another year when watching 17 year old matches?
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I went in with high hopes and was certainly not disappointed. Early on Satanico got busted and you could just see him thinking 'You bastard, I'll get you right back!' or something along those lines. Both men were heeling it up, no sportsmanship on display here. There was a nice mixture of both moves and brawling. The blood wasn't the sole focus like normal. From start to finish a high quality affair with the level never dropping. Strange though it may sound that was the only problem with it. Great matches need peaks and this was at the same level throughout. Regardless it was terrific stuff and the rivalry notched up to boiling point. Can't wait for the hair vs hair, I'm going to save it up and watch it last.
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Aja, Combat and Kudo all graduated from the AJW class of 1986. Along with Bison Kimura, Kaoru, Miori Kamiya (Cooga) and Mika Takahashi. With the awesome '85 class as well it was a talent surplus and Kudo got dropped. This was a rematch of the somewhat disasterous Dreamslam main event. Thankfully they worked a lot better together 2nd time around. Both teams were effective units and the construction was sound. The finish was particulaly impressive with elaborate and brutal moves utilised. The result was in the balance too as the FMW team wrestled like peers to the Zenjo girls. There were strong moments but a few sloppy moves held it back from being anything special. Still it's satisfying to see them redeem themselves after the previous debarcle.
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From the finals days of the original JWP promotion. A couple of months later it would be disbanded and in it's place came the new JWP and LLPW. The talent roster was split between these two organisations. As the decade progressed I can't help but think how the two promotions could have benefitted from a combined roster. LLPW lacked credible main event stars to go up against Shinobu Kandori. JWP had these in Devil Masami and Dynamite Kansai. Other workers reached main event level in future years like Ozaki and Fukuoka. The JWP roster was very talented but lacking in depth, and LLPW had plenty of good midcarders. In the original JWP these two promotions were effectively combined, yet the resulting output was underwhelming. This was even allowing for the fact that the wrestlers hadn't yet reached their peaks. This match was one of the exceptions. Right from the start the combatants layed into each other with vicious strikes. It was clear they had a heated rivalry going. Both dished out plenty of punishment. It was well structured with appropriate body part work. Kansai almost had it sewn up with Harley barely hanging on. But then she made a huge tactical error by missing a tope to the outside. Saito grabbed the opportunity with both hands as she quickly delivered high impact moves to get the upset pin. Very intelligently worked. There was only one major problem and that was the lack of a hot crowd. With that it could've been something more than a very good match.
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A captivating contest that had my full attention throughout. Fujiwawa for once came out with real aggressive intent and took it right to Takada, who seemed taken aback by this change of tactics. Unlike their previous bouts he was the one having to ward off attacks and fight defensively. Yet halfway through the veteran went back into his shell as his natural instincts took over. He backed into corners and counter-attacked. Fascinating viewing. Everything that happened revolved around Fujiwara. I was rooting for him at the end. After 23m both were hurting and it went down to the wire at 4-4. Up until then it was more cerebral than exciting, so that rounded it all off nicely.